Canvas2 – 14

Summary:
Yanagi is surprised to find Kiri also teaching at the school with Hiroki and is even more surprised to learn that Hiroki is working on becoming a teacher himself. After Hiroki goes home, Kiri explains that teaching isn’t his real goal and that Hiroki still wants to be a painter. At home, Elis compares Yanagi’s face is like that of a criminal’s on TV. But after seeing a copy of the drawing Yanagi stole from Hiroki, Elis starts to figure out their relationship with Kiri. During class, Yanagi critiques Elis’ current work and points out a spot that he thinks she should put some green, but Elis refuses because Hiroki had suggested ultramarine to her.
After school, Hiroki and Elis go to a reunion dinner at Kiri’s place. But Hiroki stops partway there and tells Elis that he’s going back to get the present that he forgot. While she, Kiri, and Yanagi wait for him to show up, Elis, because she’s seen that drawing, asks Yanagi how he feels about Kiri. Yanagi decides that it’s time to come clean about it and tells the two that the work was originally Hiroki’s and that he stole it. At that point, Hiroki calls to tell Kiri that he won’t make it because some business came up. Elis comments that it’s because Hiroki doesn’t want to meet Yanagi, and then she goes home herself. Kiri starts to cry because she feels that she didn’t consider Hiroki’s feelings and instead pushed her own feelings onto him.
Elis gets home to find Hiroki sitting on his bed in the dark. She confronts him about lying, but is even more pissed off that he let his work be taken. But when Hiroki doesn’t answer her, she can only stomp out in anger. Hiroki runs into Kiri the next day, but she’s too embarrassed to speak to him. He then hears that Yanagi is not going to be the special instructor anymore. Yanagi tells him that he wants to see Hiroki’s art once more, and leaves Kiri with Hiroki. As soon as Yanagi leaves the room, Hiroki pulls out a blank canvas and tries to draw on it, but he is still unable. Since Yanagi is the one feeling responsible for everything that happened, Hiroki opens the window and him that it’s not his fault that Hiroki stopped drawing. After Kiri says her thank-you and goodbyes, Yanagi walks off the same way that he came.

As everyone has noticed, the big surprise here is that Yanagi is leaving already after only two episodes. I really thought that he was here to stay for at least several episodes if not the rest of the series. His character served his purpose in revealing some of Hiroki’s past to everyone and having Hiroki find out that it was not in fact Yanagi’s fault that he is unable to draw. Still, I feel that they could have done more with Yanagi’s character, if even just to put someone between Kiri and Hiroki. Though Yanagi didn’t stand much of a chance, especially since Kiri talked about Hiroki every conversation she had with him.
There’s still plenty of story left (Hiroki regaining his drawing ability, Elis overcoming her past and her fear of red, Hiroki finally hooking up with Kiri), but now I’m not sure how they’re going to fill up all twelve remaining episodes, since I had assumed that Yanagi’s return would directly lead to Hiroki drawing again. As a side note, I bet Hiroki will regain his ability to draw because of Kiri, probably in a similar fashion to what was shown in last week’s episode with Hiroki getting inspiration after watching her. Anyway, the preview shows that next time is going to be about the director of the school. I just hope they don’t use a ton of girl-of-the-week filler, though I admit that the first few episodes of this series weren’t that bad.

He can’t leave! How the hell are Hiroki and Kiri going to make any progress without him!? This anime needs to be brought to justice with hot pepper on top of it! I mean, that random Shota guy sticks around for several episodes while the not-so-random character gets kicked out in couple of episodes!? EVIL. Well, unless they already had the little talk of climax.

I’m surprised Kiri’s still doing the next episode previews. How long will that last?

It’s interesting that Shouta hasn’t shown up for awhile. I guess he really did just exist just to kill time.

I’m also shocked Yanagi left so early. I wonder if he’ll come back. I recall he played a much larger role in the game, and was around for a much longer period of time. I personally think Hiroki’ll get his ability to draw back from Elis, in a similar way that he was inspired as a child by Kiri. I’d rather it was Kiri that inspired him, but I just can’t believe it’ll be that simple. I still think Hiroki’ll have to do that picture of Elis from the CD… But I could be wrong. I am always surprised by this show. I just can’t be sure where it will go next.

Which makes me wonder just how much of a filler episode next week will be.

Yanagi is leaving already? I thought he would throw a wrench into the Hiroki and Kiri’s relationship. O_o But gone so-o soon. Also suprised he wised up to stealing the painting so quickly. Not too sure what to expect now. Last episode was pretty good, so I wasn’t expecting these turn of events. I do think Elis will play a part in bringing Hiroki and Kiri together.

Hope they give some air time to the green-haired girl with glass (don’t recall her name), the one that rides the motorcycle. She never got her own episode back when they went through the other girls.

I think this is drifting away from the game like Shuffle! did. Yanagi’s return was supposed to be the final conflict in Kiri route in the game, but he left without pulling that conflict off. The storyline can no longer be affected by the game’s storyline, it seems -_-